Email Design

An important element to any email communication is the look and feel of the email.

There are a number of factors to consider when developing your email template/s:

- What are the objectives for your email communications? What information should always be displayed on your email, and incorporated into the template (logo, contact number, a prominent send to a friend button, links to specific sections of your website, and mandatories such as link to privacy policy and an unsubscribe facility)? How prominent will each of these elements be?

- Do you require one or multiple email templates? This depends on the type of information you want to send, as well as the aims for each communication. An eNewsletter style template with multiple articles is common, but requires more work due to the amount of content. A short postcard email can be effective if there is only one message to communicate, such as an event, promotion or a sale, and/or if you want your customer to simply click through to your website.

- Will your template be viewed well in different email clients? How does your design look in Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo… or via Outlook or Lotus Notes?

- How does your email render on mobile devices? A recent report by MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling (2007) states that 64% of key decision makers view email on their BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.

- Is your design SPAM friendly? Most email broadcast systems offer the capability to run your email templates through a SPAM checker to see if there are any elements that trigger SPAM filters. There are also some free SPAM checkers online.

Remember that not everyone views emails with images – ensure that you develop a text version of your email and pay attention to how this is formatted – it’s important that this version is also easy to read.